Rabbi Levinger's narrative is his own, in the main and properly enough a personal one, but it is representative of the work of some thirty men some of whom ministered to the troops who did not go abroad whilst others had the opportunity of being in the midst of the Great Adventure. Every one who saw the troops overseas, could not doubt the real service of the chaplain or the appeal that religion made to the men in uniform. However the armchair philosophers may have viewed the war, it strengthened the faith of the men who were engaged; hundreds of thousands of young men turned to the chaplain who would have been indifferent to him at home. That this was true of Jewish young men is certain and if there has been a reaction on the part of these young men who returned from the war, let it be blamed not so much upon religion, as upon the disappointment in the soldiers' minds at the attitude of the millions of their fellow citizens who remained at home and who want to "forget the war." The soldier who came back and found that his fellow citizens had their nerves so over-wrought by reading of the war in newspapers that they immediately entered upon a period of wild extravagances and wilder pleasure, might very well have had his faith, newly acquired if you choose, shaken by this evident lack of seriousness on the part of his fellow countrymen. I shall not commend Rabbi Levinger's book to his readers, because if the book does not commend itself, no approbation will. As an officer of the Jewish Welfare Board whose purpose was to join with other organizations in contributing to the welfare of the American soldiers and sailors and particularly to provide for the religious needs of those of the Jewish faith, I want to express the obligations of the Board to the Rabbis who without experience or previous training for the purpose, entered upon this service and carried it through with distinction. Had it not been for them, the overseas work of the Board would have been comparatively limited and many a Jewish boy would have been deprived of the comforts and solace of his religion. I cannot help but think that the chaplain himself derived much benefit from his service. In sections of the synagogue, as I believe in sections of the church, men are on many occasions a minority in the congregation and ministration is largely to women and children. It meant something for the chaplain to have great congregations of men, and of young men at that, and I am inclined to think hardened his mental and even spiritual fiber. It emphasized too the importance of emotion and sentiment as against mere rationalism. The worship meant more than a preachment, and sympathetic human contact for a minute was worth a barrel of oratory.